


70 Years From the Vault, Among Other Things

by thecumberbinch



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Human AU, Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Rating May Change, just some stupid shit, oof why am i doing this, some other stuff, whatever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-01-29 14:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12633069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecumberbinch/pseuds/thecumberbinch
Summary: *Previously Some Thoschei Shit* twissy oneshots from various points in the vault. other oneshots thrown in.





	1. Nail polish and Fishtail braids-missy/12

**Author's Note:**

> Missy gives Twelve a makeover.

“You put the clear coat on first; I just told you that. No! That’s too much! Just a little swipe is all you need,” Missy quipped, glaring at the Doctor as he grabbed a paper towel to wipe away the offending mess he’d made off of Missy’s index finger,  
“Sorry,” he muttered, “What makes you think I’ve done this before?”  
“Fair point,” she responded, “In that case, why don’t you try again?”  
The Doctor pulled the top out of the bottle and swiped it over Missy’s nails. As they dried, Missy took the brush and did the same to the Doctor’s. The Doctor picked up the other bottle, reading the label.  
“Ravish Me Red? Why can’t they just call it red? What’s the deal with humans and their stupid names for everything? After all these years, that’s one thing I never really understood.” Missy laughed,  
“Maybe it’s a message from the universe; a tip to push you in the right direction.” The Doctor looked at her, raised an eyebrow and continued his work.  
The Doctor frowned down at his hands, “It’s a good color on you; don’t look so cross,” Missy said, popping another piece of a cookie into her mouth. She looked at him for a moment and paused,  
“One moment, hold still,” she said, pulling out an eye pencil and placing her hand on the side of his face to steady herself as she slowly made a line on his eyelids and extended them out into two identical pointed wings. She pulled out a tube of lipstick and slid it along his lips.  
“Perfect,” she said, complimenting her handiwork while handing the Doctor a mirror.  
Missy looked at him expectantly, “So?” The Doctor touched the side of his face, looking at the red color on his lips, matching the lacquer on his nails and complimenting the bold black lines on his eyes, “I feel…pretty?” he said. Missy smiled at him and tucked a piece of hair behind his ear, “Now for this hair of yours…I’m thinking about a fishtail braid.”


	2. Milk, Two Sugars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've got a routine now; Missy listens to the Doctor talk and she feels guilty.

They’ve got a routine now: the Doctor opens the vault door carrying a plastic take away bag and two coffees. Missy waits patiently on the loveseat, sock-clad feet draped over a sturdy leather arm. He goes to set the bag down on the table in front of her, but she swings her legs down from the armrest grabs the bag out of his hands, opening the box and fishing out a powdered doughnut. The Doctor takes his place next to her on the loveseat and a sprinkled doughnut for himself.

They sit together in companionable silence as they eat their breakfast, Missy watching in mesmerized horror as the Doctor adds cube after cube of sugar to his coffee. The amount of cubes varies every day, she notes, but the overall disgusting quantity never ceases to amaze her. Missy, herself is more regular; a splash of milk, two sugars; every day, every week, all the time. Of course, once the doughnuts and coffee are gone, the Doctor can’t keep himself quiet. He goes on about his students and their papers, the various university staff and their mannerisms, something the Doctor himself his labeled _eclectic_ for lack of a better description, and everything in between. Missy watches him, listening intently to his never-ending stream of words. Overall, she could care less about the humans and their petty little actions, but it’s _him_ who’s talking and in that regard, it couldn’t be more fascinating. She doesn’t have much to tell him anyway; how much do you really have to say when you’re stuck in a room all day?

So she listens, and she begins to realize that all those years ago when she asked for her friend back in the middle of a graveyard that she was wrong, because he’s been here this entire time, buried underneath layers and layers of solid Teflon protecting his hearts.

Missy knows she’s the reason he’s so fiercely protective of them: after all, she’s killed him and double-crossed him more times than she can count. She listens to him talk on and on every morning, and every morning she comes up with a thousand more apologies she wants him to hear. She wants to prove to him she can be good: really, truly, good.

At just around nine, he leaves to go lecture; he’ll come back tomorrow with plenty more stories to tell, and Missy will come up with one thousand more apologies.

The vault door closes with a dull thud and Missy finds herself at the piano, gingerly stroking the keys.

Maybe one day, she’ll find the courage to tell him she’s always loved him, and maybe one day he’ll listen. Until then, however, it’s just coffee, doughnuts, and endless mundane stories of the outside world.

Maybe one day Missy will tell the truth, and maybe one day the Doctor will listen.

 

 

 

 


	3. Oh Night, Oh Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missy makes a piece for the Doctor. He makes a promise. Inspired by Rachmaninoff's Suite No. 1 in G Minor, Fantaisie-tableaux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something short. enjoy.

He’s tired of dealing with students constantly entering his office to ask questions or to get their essay grades back. Honestly, don’t they have better things to do? So he retreats to the vault: at least he can have some peace with the only person in the universe who at least somewhat understands him.

The Doctor lets out a sigh and scribbles something on a student’s essay and promptly adds it to the mountainous stack sitting next to him. Missy watches him from across the room, silently sipping her tea and she reads. The vault feels eerily quiet with only the scratching of the Doctor’s pen and the swipe of Missy’s periodic page turns to fill the void. Missy senses the Doctor’s uneasiness, so she puts down her book and makes her way to the piano. She plays a couple notes and throws in a couple arpeggios to dress it up. The piece begins to take shape as she expresses everything she loves about him through bright tremolos and flowing runs. She reaches a peak, a melody that in her personal opinion reflects the universe and all its stars and _him_.

She loses herself in her reverie, images of future longings and distant memories flashing behind her eyelids. She continues her drabble until she closes on a silent, more somber version of her original melody. Wrapped up in her trance, she barely notices when the Doctor stops clapping and comes up behind her and rests his hands on her shoulders. He smiles at her, that soft, quiet smile that’s only ever reserved for her,

“Where’d you get that?”

Missy looks down, gingerly stroking the keys, “Just came up with it. Thought you might enjoy a bit of background noise.”

“What would you call it?” he asks, curling a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

She thinks for a moment, trying to figure out a way to hide her true inspiration for the piece. After a moment, she settles on a title.

“Oh Night, Oh Love, I think; yes. I rather like that.”

The Doctor kisses the top of her head, letting his fingers drift through the wispy hairs at the nape of her neck,

“One day, we’ll go out and see all those stars. I promise you.”


	4. We're All Just Stories in the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missy asks the Doctor to tell her a story. What becomes of it is much more.

It’s well past five when he enters the vault. The artificial sunset has come and gone, and Missy is curled up in her favorite chair watching a children’s program; something called “Sailor Moon”, if he recalls correctly. The light from the TV screen accentuates her profile, her brows furrowing as she watches in careful concentration. The scent of lavender gently wafts into the air from a forgotten cup of tea beside her on the floor, the matching saucer covered in the sugary flakes of a pastry; he gingerly picks up the dishes and places them in the sink. He’s never been one for mundane household chores; his untidiness once got so bad the Tardis just decided to pick up after him; but just this once, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do the dishes.

            “Do you know why I like this show?”

He turns around, abandoning the dishes and taking the seat beside her,

            “The main villain has a good sense of style that you’d like to adopt at some point?”

She laughs, picking up the remote and turning off the TV,

“Her dress is rather pretty, but that’s not the point. The main character reminds me of you; she’s a bit clumsy, and she doesn’t always know what she’s doing, but she’s got a strong moral compass and she gets there in the end. Oh, and she’s always kind. That last one especially; kindness is very you.”

She’s focused on him now, eyeing him like she’s staring into his soul instead of his eyes. She can read him like a book; he knows that all too well.

            “So what brings you down here? Is it sleepover night?” she asks, uncurling herself from the chair and tossing her jacket at him.

            “If you like; I don’t have any classes tomorrow, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

The smile she gives him is enough of a confirmation. Missy begins unbuttoning her blouse, pausing in the midst of letting down her hair,

            “I may not be able to see you, but I know you’re still looking. Don’t turn around until I say so or I’ll cut off one of your fingers.”

            He laughs to himself; _some things never change_. He neatly folds her jacket and places it on the chair before stepping into the containment field and absentmindedly running his hand over the piano lid.

            “Good for you. For a second there I thought you were going to peek. You’re free to turn around.”

Missy has chosen one of his shirts: the David Bowie one. God knows where she got that.

            “Shuck off your shoes before you even _think_ about sleeping in my bed. And the jacket too; it makes me uncomfortable just looking at you.”

The Doctor follows her instructions; he kicks off his shoes and drapes his jacket over the armrest of another chair. He pulls up the sheets and joins Missy underneath the covers, her cold sock-clad feet immediately coming up to rest on his legs as she wraps her arms around his torso. His right hand finds its usual place against her hip; his left resting on the side of her face, his thumb stroking the contour of her cheekbone. She presses their foreheads together; he can hear little bits and pieces of her thoughts before she puts up a telepathic shield, blowing them away like wisps of smoke on a windy afternoon.

They sit like that for a while; the only sounds in the hollow vault are the mantra of heartbeats and quiet shallow breathing.

“Tell me a story.”

The Doctor opens his eyes; Missy is looking at him intently, her breath grazing his upper lip,

            “What kind of story? I’ve got plenty. You’ve got to narrow it down at least a little bit.”

            Missy is quiet for a while. The Doctor watches her face, trying to get a reading on her thoughts, to no avail. The quiet settles over them like a dense blanket of fog, a fragile piece of crystal that could be shattered with the faintest touch.

            “You; I want to hear about you.”

He raises an eyebrow,

            “Me? You already know me. You know all the stories about me, whether they’re from the academy or legends from other planets.”

            “I want to know about _you_. Not all those things you did with your strays; no. I want to hear about what you did when they weren’t around.”

            He’s taken aback by her request, but he is obligated to fulfill it nonetheless.

After much mental debate, he decides to tell her about what he did after she faked her death and he destroyed her somewhat inappropriate gift.

            “After you, erm, died of sorts, I took the coordinates and tried to find Gallifrey.”

She shifts uncomfortably, “The nonexistent location of Gallifrey.”

“Well, yes. Then I sort of bounced around a bit, revisited old favorites, sat in front of the Medusa Cascade, the Crab Nebula; spending a couple days staring into a star system really does help you calm down: you should try it some time.”

Missy pauses, her eyes glazing over. She looks up at him questioningly, then ducks her head down again and mutters something under her breath.

“I’m sorry? Missy, I can’t hear you. One day I’ll let you out of this vault and we can go see-”

“Are you angry?”

Her words echo through the vault, bouncing off the barren walls and shattering the soft atmosphere and replacing it with a thick layer of tension.

“I-what for? The coordinates?”

A silent, shaky nod from Missy is all he needs.

He notices only now the water gathering along her lash line, threatening to spill over in a moment.

“I was, at first. The Tardis took the brunt of it. But no, not anymore.”

“But are you angry at _me_?” a tear slides down her cheek in a crescent shape, following the pull of gravity as it reaches the bridge of her nose and drips down onto the sheets.

“No, Missy. No I’m not. Not anymore. But if I had found it, I honestly wouldn’t have known what to do, so I don’t even think it matters.”

She’s quiet again; even though the Doctor doesn’t have access to her thoughts, he can still hear the gears turning in her head.

“I’m sorry Missy. Would you like to hear a different story? I do have some you might like; unless, of course, you already know them,” he gives her a knowing smile, the kind he only reserves for her.

“Yes; a different one, please.”

He begins to tell her about all the things he did when she wasn’t around, and all the things he wished she’d been there to see with him. Hours later, they make an agreement to go see all those things together, as a reward for spending 1000 years in a vault. He makes a mental note to take her somewhere for her birthday. He doesn’t tell her of course; that would be breaking the promise, and more importantly ruining the surprise.

Eventually Missy falls asleep mid-story, and the Doctor decides it’s a good time to stop. She absentmindedly shuffles nearer to him, and he pulls her closer. She buries her nose into the nape of his neck, giving him a faceful of her hair. _It smells like roses_ , he notes. He decides to ask her about her own travels tomorrow; if she chooses to share them, that is.

He dreams of when they were children. Despite what he had forgotten, he always remembered that Koschei had the best stories. Late at night, they’d stay up and write some together. He found a book full of human fairytales and had brought it back up to their dorm. He shared it with Koschei, and to his surprise he had taken an interest in it. With a combination of the stories in the book, Gallifreyian folklore, and their own imaginations, they had written their own stories, filled with dreams and aspirations. They included all the places they wanted to see. That was a promise too; one day they would steal a Tardis and run away together. He still had the book somewhere in the Tardis; he would dig it up tomorrow and show it to Missy.

He smiled sadly; despite how much time had passed and how much they’d been through, the stories had never changed.

One day, those stories would become reality, one thousand years in the future with travels that encompassed tens of thousands of hopes and dreams. And when it was all over, they’d become two crackling beams of light, forever intertwined, and filled with stories for eternities to come.

That’s the way it would always be, no matter how much time passed:

Theta, Koschei, love, hate, violence, peace:

            The longest and oldest story in the universe.


End file.
